Putin: No idea who hacked US Democratic Party

Friday, September 02, 2016 - 00:50

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he doesn't know who was behind the hacking of U.S. Democratic Party organisations but it was important the information had been made public. Rough cut (no reporter narration).

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ROUGH CUT - SUBTITLED (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he does not know who was behind the hacking of U.S. Democratic Party organisations but that it was important the information had been made public.
In an interview two days before a G20 meeting in China with U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders, Putin said it could be impossible to establish who engineered the release of sensitive Democratic Party emails but it was not done by the Russian government.
The hacked emails, released by activist group WikiLeaks in July, appeared to show favouritism within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and prompted the resignation of the body's chairwoman.
A computer network used by Clinton's campaign, and the party's fundraising committee for the U.S. House of Representatives were also hacked.
Obama said in August he would discuss the cyber attack with Putin if Russia was responsible, but it would not "wildly" alter the two countries' relationship.
Relations between Russia and United States hit a post-Cold War low in 2014 over the Ukraine crisis and Washington and Moscow have since clashed over diverging policies in Syria.
Clinton, whom polls show as leading in the campaign for the U.S. presidential election in November, has said Russian intelligence services conducted the cyber attack against her party. Some officials have suggested Moscow is trying to influence the U.S. election.
Putin dismissed the allegations.

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